OSU professor who directs Buckeye Bullet project lives life in the fast lane

Sunday

Mar 3, 2013 at 12:01 AMMar 3, 2013 at 12:47 PM

Giorgio Rizzoni wakes up around 5 every morning and starts the day with an espresso, maybe two. Then it's on to his Google calendar and a schedule that would give most people a headache. Even as he's working on one project, Rizzoni's always asking himself what he can do next.

Sarah Bowman, The Columbus Dispatch

Giorgio Rizzoni wakes up around 5 every morning and starts the day with an espresso, maybe two.

Then it’s on to his Google calendar and a schedule that would give most people a headache.

Even as he’s working on one project, Rizzoni’s always asking himself what he can do next.

Those who know the Ohio State University professor in charge of the Buckeye Bullet — the school’s electric racing car — know that tapping the brakes is not in his nature.

“The best piece of advice I ever received was don’t procrastinate,” said Rizzoni, 54. “That applies to everything in life as far as I’m concerned. If I’m going to do something, I do it.”

Rizzoni directs Ohio State’s Center for Automotive Research and teaches mechanical and aerospace engineering. Those courses include lectures about forces that slow us down, but his work with the Buckeye Bullet is all about ramping up speed.Since he started the program in 2000, he and his students have set three land-speed records.

This summer, they hope to pilot the first electric vehicle to go faster than 400 mph.Only nine vehicles have broken the 400 mph barrier. All of them were gas-guzzling cars. Rizzoni has his eye on beating them, too.

When Rizzoni is frustrated or excited, his speech becomes peppered with Italian, said David Cooke, one of his students and current team leader for the Bullet project. But one word you never hear him say — in English or Italian — is no, said Cooke, who is studying mechanical engineering. “Every idea has merit and there is a way to accomplish every idea,” he said.

“There’s never a ‘That can’t be done.’ ”Rizzoni was born in Bologna, Italy, and grew up in Rome.He came to the United States in 1977 on a scholarship to the University of Michigan, where he completed bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering.

“I don’t know how many engineers there are in my family, more than we should count,” Rizzoni said. “So it’s a genetic disorder. I was not vaccinated early enough, I guess.”William Ribbens, one of Rizzoni’s professors and a mentor at Michigan, said he expected no less from his student.

“It doesn’t surprise me at all that he is doing things at the leading edge of technology and what he does really shines,” Ribbens said.Rizzoni said Ribbens exposed him to new ideas and then got out of his way, leaving him to imagine and create.

Cooke said that’s exactly how Rizzoni works with his OSU students.He arrived at Ohio State in 1990 and got involved with the Center for Automotive Research when it opened the next year. From 1994 to 1999, he and his students raced an electric car they dubbed the Smokin’ Buckeye at various college competitions.

“When we won that first electric-car race in 1994, and I was out there with an OSU hat on my head and leading a team of Ohio State students ... that was a pretty strong sense of pride and ownership,” Rizzoni said.

The Buckeye Bullet came next in 2000, and OSU teams have built three that have proved their worth on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.The team holds the U.S. and world records for electric cars, both battery and fuel cell. In all, the OSU cars have set three records.

“The three fastest electric cars ever built by anyone have all been built here at Ohio State by our students,” Rizzoni said.

The first Buckeye Bullet set the U.S. electric-car record at 315 mph. Five years later, the Buckeye Bullet 2 set the international record at 303 mph. Finally, the Buckeye Bullet 2.5 bested its international record by reaching 308 mph in 2010.

With each success in Utah, he celebrates with cigars and champagne.“Believe it or not, part of the equipment that comes to the Salt Flats is a sword,” Rizzoni said. “There is this process of decapitating champagne bottles with a sword that has accompanied every record I know of.”Roger Schroer has piloted the Buckeye Bullet since 2004. He said Rizzoni’s competitive nature is infectious.

“He wants to break records and wants to achieve,” said Schroer, a development driver at Transportation Research Center Inc. “You could definitely say he has the need for speed.”

It has been nearly three years since an OSU car has been in Utah. Since then, the team has been creating the Buckeye Bullet 3, hoping to push the car past 400 mph.

That involves making incremental changes to the 2.5 version, altering shape to shave wind resistance and finding the perfect balance of weight and power.

Rizonni drives a BMW but is in the market for a new ride. He sketched a design for an electric Corvette but said he doesn’t have the time to build it.

“Here I am doing all these things with electric and hybrid cars, and shouldn’t I have an electric car?” he said. “I wish I could afford to have a garage with four cars — that probably would be about right.”Then again, spare time for such an endeavor would be hard to come by. When he gets the chance, he plays golf in the summer and skis in the winter with his children, Alex, 19; Maria, 18; and Michael, 13.

His favorite hobby is spear-fishing, which he enjoys during annual trips home to Italy.“I think why he likes spear fishing and golf, too, is that he is kind of isolated from the world,” said his wife, Kathy Rizzoni.

“No one is calling him, asking him questions or emailing him — it’s a quiet and peaceful escape.”Then again, the engineer said he’s happiest when he’s working with others. And, in particular, with his students when they are making something go faster.

sbowman@dispatch.com

@SarahCBowman

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